Daily Devotionals
Charles Spurgeon's "Morning & Evening"
Devotional: October 13th

Morning

“Behold the man.”

John 19:1-15

John 19:1-3

Even as Isaiah had prophesied: “I gave my back to the smiters, and my cheeks to them that plucked off the hair; I hid not my face from shame and spitting.” An old writer says, concerning this shameful spitting, “What couldest thou have found on earth more vile and loathsome in order to thy abasement than that man should spit on thee? and this, moreover, with such railing and insult, as though thou wert the pest of mankind, a blasphemer and an outcast unworthy of the merest decencies of life! What, Lord, was there in thee to be loathed? Why, then, do they thus contemn and spit upon thee? Oh, my God, it is my due, not thine! Truly do I, Lord, deserve to be spitted on by every creature, as a vile and harmful thing, a wretched sinner, unworthy to live; but thou, Infinite Mercy, dost promote me to honour, dost spare me, and, for my sake, dost yield up the majesty of thy person and thy divine countenance to be humbled by such loathsome affronts and insults!”

John 19:4 , John 19:5

A spectacle which ought to have broken their hearts, and melted them to pity. Can we look on our suffering Lord and not love him? If so, we are as base as they.

John 19:6 , John 19:7

They first charged him with a civil, and then with an ecclesiastical offence. They cared not how they compassed his death so that they could be rid of him.

John 19:8

The mention of so august a claim as that of being Son of God cooperated with his wife’s dream to arouse his fears.

John 19:12

Now they come back to the old charge. When men hate Jesus and his religion they will say anything; a wicked tongue is never short of arguments.

John 19:13-15

What a sarcasm was that! “Shall I crucify your King?” It was clear as noonday that he was no dangerous rival of Cæsar, for how could he be really a temporal king of the Jews when the Jews themselves were clamouring for his execution?

Are any of us; like these Jews, rejecting the kingship of Jesus? We may be doing so practically, and that will be as fatal to our souls as if we did so in words. Lord Jesus, thou art our King, reign over us and in us, that we may one day reign with thee.

Evening

“Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.”

Luke 23:24-34

Luke 23:24 , Luke 23:25

He had not courage to stem the stream, he feared that they might accuse him to Cæsar if he suffered Jesus to go free, and, therefore, he sold himself to do evil. We need to be firm in our principles or we shall soon be driven into great sin.

Luke 23:26

Wherein he was highly privileged. Such honour have all true saints.

Shall Simon bear the cross alone

And all the rest go free?

No, there’s a cross for every one

And there’s a cross for me.

Luke 23:27

No woman is mentioned as having spoken against Jesus in his life, or as having had a share in his death. Of woman born, by a woman was he anointed for his burial; a woman Pilate’s wife pleaded for him, and here women wept over him. Women ministered to him in life, laid him in the grave, and were the first to meet him at his rising.

Luke 23:28-31

Our Lord foresaw the terrors of the siege of Jerusalem, and bade the women prepare for overwhelming sorrows. If the innocent thus suffered, what would become of the guilty?

John 19:19-27

John 19:22

He could be firm when he liked, and his sin was, therefore, all the greater.

John 19:23 , John 19:24

Gambling hardens the heart, none but gamblers could have been brutish enough to rattle dice where the blood of Jesus was falling. The very sound of dice and the sight of cards should be loathed by a follower of the Crucified.

John 19:26 , John 19:27

To whose care should he commit his mother, but to that of the beloved John? He has handed over the widow and the orphan to the care of his people; let us not forget them.